Man quit banking job in 2013 to sell tea, now makes $500 million pa: Boss thought I was insane

'When you’re struggling... to start a business, you think you have to invent the next light bulb or the next wheel. But it’s really about looking for something that [has] a lot of potential,' Martin Berry, chairman of Gong Cha said. (AI-generated image)

In 2013, when Martin Berry announced he wanted to quit his lucrative banking career to sell bubble tea, his boss thought he was “insane”. Now, however, Berry is managing multi‑trillion‑dollar balance sheets in senior executive roles in Singapore.

Speaking to CNBC Make It, the entrepreneur and chairman of international bubble tea franchise Gong Cha said that he became disillusioned with the “corporate system". Berry described it as focused on risk management rather than risk‑taking. The lack of entrepreneurial freedom pushed him to re‑evaluate whether staying in finance was worth it.

“I realized after working hard for quite a long period of time that I didn’t really like the corporate system … It was all about risk management, not risk taking,” he said.

Building a global tea brand

Gong Cha began as a single tea shop in Taiwan in 1996, opened by Zhen‑hua Wu. Before Berry joined, the company operated in just four Asian countries.

Under his leadership, the brand transformed into an international powerhouse with over 2,000 locations across 30 countries. Its rapid expansion — franchising outlets from the US to Europe to the Middle East — has positioned the company as a dominant player in the global bubble tea market.

The business now generates around $500 million annually, a testament to Berry’s pivot from banking to beverages.

Finding creative ways to earn money

Berry grew up in the countryside of Melbourne, Australia, where he developed an entrepreneurial streak early on. He recalls that his family “didn’t necessarily have a lot of money,” pushing him to find creative ways to earn.

From working on farms and feeding cows to selling Christmas trees, Berry tried “different types of things” to make money as a kid. “I was just born with this innate desire for making money,” he said, adding that he was driven by “the empowerment that it could bring.”

“When you’re struggling ... to start a business, you think you have to invent the next light bulb or the next wheel ... but it’s so far from the truth,” Berry told the publication. “It’s really about looking for something that [has] a lot of potential, whether you can either do it better than somebody [else], or you can put a different spin on it."